Unless otherwise indicated herein, the description in this section is not prior art to the claims in this application and is not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
There is known an image forming apparatus where a document reading unit is openably/closably mounted on the upper portion of the image forming apparatus body by a hinge part. An opening is formed on the top surface of the document reading unit. An exposure glass is embedded in the opening. The top surface of the exposure glass is formed as a document loading surface to place an original document. A scanner device is housed within the document reading unit. The scanner device optically reads the original document placed on the document loading surface to generate its image data. A document cover is openably/closably mounted on the top surface of the above-described document reading unit by a hinge.
For such image forming apparatus, turning the document reading unit around the hinge as pivot equal to or more than a predetermined degree with the document cover opened may cause the image forming apparatus to lose the weight balance of the entire apparatus and to be toppled.
In order to solve this problem, for example, there is a technique that provides a connection capable of the document cover to the image forming apparatus body with a link mechanism so as to maintain the constant degree of the document cover with respect to the image forming apparatus body even if the document reading unit is opened and closed.
For example, there is a technique that provides a lock mechanism that locks the document cover so as to prevent the document cover from turning around the hinge as pivot while the document reading unit is in open state.